//------------------------------//
// Bonus 2 - Fatherhood 
// Story: Flitter 
// by Nyerguds 
//------------------------------//


Flitter

Bonus Two
Fatherhood


The changeling looked at the foal much like a space explorer would look at an alien life form. He resisted the urge to prod it.

The tiny blue unicorn was lying in a hospital bed, next to his mother. The pegasus mare was fast asleep, though, completely exhausted from the labours of foalbirth. The changeling was more than thankful for this. He realized all too well that the deal he had made three months earlier hadn't been a good one. The dying stallion whose place he took had well and thoroughly screwed him over. All love in this relationship was constantly being poisoned by underlying currents of silent resentment, and with his limited understanding of pony relations, the changeling only now started to realize why.

But he had promised he'd look after them. And even if the mare would continue to silently despise him, the foal was quite a different matter.

Flitter realized, though, that he knew nothing about foals. The small blue thing was looking at him with wide open eyes, radiating an emotion that felt oddly like, well, hunger. Or rather, the changeling equivalent of hunger. The foal had nudged its mother and found her unresponsive, and had instinctively turned to the other occupant in the room, looking for the affection it needed.

Flitter felt an odd kinship with the tiny being. Both had been denied the affection of the mare lying in the hospital bed. Though he realized all too well that the foal, unlike him, would readily receive all the loving care it needed once she was awake again.

He reached out with the telekinetic magic that came so easily with Swift Star's aura information, and plucked the foal off the bed. He sat down on the floor and gently put the tiny thing down between his forelegs. The foal looked at him as all foals look at the world; trying to make sense of the brand new colourful shapes around them. Its disproportionately large orange eyes looked at the disguised changeling, whose eyes, mimicking the foal's biological father, were exactly the same colour.

Apparently satisfied with what it saw, it snuggled its head into its surrogate father's forelegs, and promptly fell asleep.

Flitter stared at the foal, utterly shocked at what he just experienced. He would never have imagined such strong emotions coming from such a young and underdeveloped being.

His eyes softened, and he smiled, gently stroking the tiny thing's blue coat with a hoof. Even asleep, the foal reacted with an affectionate nudge towards the caring appendage, and a whole new flood of radiated happiness.

Flitter felt revived. After months of neglect, these raw untainted emotions of pure love for a parent were exactly what he'd needed.

He nodded slowly. "You and I, little one, we'll get along just fine."